tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post6686533522293633568..comments2023-11-05T04:09:26.194-05:00Comments on e g r e g o r e s: Peter Kingsley: A New Age Christian Hiding Under an Ancient Philosopher's CloakApuleius Platonicushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-49706520028494500132019-12-03T04:14:25.085-05:002019-12-03T04:14:25.085-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Moesy Pittounikoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11040353118765711181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-48420147035285366392017-11-28T13:47:26.243-05:002017-11-28T13:47:26.243-05:00I love Kingsley .He is a true master of truth and ...I love Kingsley .He is a true master of truth and the hidden and suppressed knowledge of reality and the principles that govern our existence.<br />Stanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00293846599883785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-32891741476738421012013-01-31T17:52:04.195-05:002013-01-31T17:52:04.195-05:00Here's a sample of Kingsley's bs-
PK...Fo...Here's a sample of Kingsley's bs-<br /><br />PK...For example, many years ago I discovered that towns and cities and other places have their own genius loci as the Romans used to say--their own divine presence or governing deity. I actually experienced this for the first time in Cambridge, when she came to me just before I left the university there in the 1970s.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />RW: Came to you? How? In a dream?<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />PK: No. I was sitting one afternoon on the lawn of my college, alongside King's College Chapel. There were other people around and suddenly she was just there: an incredibly glorious divine, feminine being. Nobody else could see her but she introduced herself to me, told me who she was. And what moved me more than anything was when she showed me that all the extraordinary human intelligence emanating from Cambridge University over the centuries was simply a blossoming, an expression, of her own divine intelligenceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-31718478338281472332012-08-28T11:37:35.682-04:002012-08-28T11:37:35.682-04:00It seems most of the people here who are claiming ...It seems most of the people here who are claiming that they have any idea whatsoever what Peter claims have failed to do one thing: take a look at the evidence, evaluate his scholarship from the articles and Kingsley's own bibliography and footnotes. Kingsley's work is profoundly well-reasoned, supremely documented (the footnotes alone in his most recent book are outstanding). Kingsley is bar-none the living expert on the pre-Socratics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-51140664105913916542012-07-05T21:20:17.305-04:002012-07-05T21:20:17.305-04:00You to look to the historians. And actually read K...You to look to the historians. And actually read Kingsley. Start with Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition. <br /><br />And earlier scholars: From the Preface, PARMENIDES AND EMPEDOCLES, The Fragments in Verse Tradition, by Stanley Lombardo: <br /><br /> The common view of the pre-Socratic philosophers is that they stand at the beginning of Greek (and therefore Western) rationalism and science. And so they do. But they also stood at the end of tradition, a life of the mind and the spirit that was intuitive and holistic. Men like Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles did not distinguish science from poetry or religious experience from philosophical understanding. They represent an older cultural type – in many way they resemble Siberian and American Indian shamans – that have disappeared from the Greek world in the classical period, and is perhaps not widely enough understood in our own time.<br /><br />E.R.Dodds and others, following the lead of Swiss scholar Karl Meuli, have traced the outlines of a Greek shamanistic tradition that had contact with Asiatic shamanism in Scythia, was evidenced in the eastern Aegean rim and Crete, and crossed over to southern Italy in the sixth century B.C. with Pythagoras. Parmenides, from Elea in southern Italy, was in this line; and Empedocles, a Sicilian, was its last representative.<br /><br />A shaman is trained to undertake hazardous spiritual journeys in order to exercise compassion and advance wisdom, and he often reports his experiences in the form of a song, chant, or poem. Parmenides’ poem closely resembles such a report, both in the details of the journey recounted in the prologue and in the substance of what the Goddess tells him, which is that the universe and our minds from a mutually committed whole. Dodds calls Empedocles’ fragments “the one first-hand source from which we can still form some notion of what A Greek shaman was really like” (The Greeks and the Irrational [1951], p 145). His understanding of the physical and the metaphysical universe was directed toward a personal transformation that enabled him to benefit others and realize his own liberation. Poetry was for both of them a natural, but practiced, means of expression. They were not philosophers who just happened to write in verse.<br /><br />Alongside their poetic practice I think both Empedocles and Parmenides trained themselves in some kind of formal meditation practice, perhaps Pythagorean in origin, and that there are hints of what there was in the fragments. I have indicated in the Introductions what can be made of this. The historical record, scant at best for both Parmenides and Empedocles, is not helpful here. But their poetry exists; it can be pieced together still, and through the pieced vision we can understand something of their minds.deborahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10237190727650725637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-25483151133963493802011-10-25T19:57:50.372-04:002011-10-25T19:57:50.372-04:00musredux: "And your background and training i...musredux: "And your background and training is...?"<br /><br />I do not claim to be an "authority". But the fact is that what Kingsley says is contradicted by the vast majority of contemporary "experts" on classical philosophy. But I think most of those experts are approximately as full of shit as Kingsley is. <br /><br />There is no substitute for thinking for onseself.Apuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-49402477938093945502011-10-25T16:58:29.005-04:002011-10-25T16:58:29.005-04:00And your background and training is...?
As the C...And your background and training is...? <br /><br />As the Crusaders continue to bomb and bury archaeology in the sand. But you can't bury it all forever.deborahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10237190727650725637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-91636616376536827602011-06-02T16:20:16.137-04:002011-06-02T16:20:16.137-04:00Kingsley has chosen, and has openly declared his d...Kingsley has chosen, and has openly declared his decision, to devote himself to disparaging one of the greatest spiritual traditions in human history, that of Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. And he has also chosen to make common cause with Muslims, Christians, and New Age blowhards. And on top of all that he is a toady of the Idiot Prince Charles.<br /><br />And on top of all that, he is an über-guru wannabe and a megalomaniac of the first degree who claims to have uncovered a conspiracy that has held the human psyche in its thrall for two millennia. Now it would be one thing if he were to claim that about the totalitarian ideologies of Christianity and Islam, which actually have held a significant portion of the human psyche in chains for about two millennia, give or take. But to claim this about Plato? While playing footsie with the Monotheists? This cannot be explained either by mere insanity or moral depravity alone, but only by a combination of both in excessive quantities.<br /><br />Otherwise I do not have any strong feelings about that subject.Apuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-50374502495985444642011-06-02T15:53:57.698-04:002011-06-02T15:53:57.698-04:00Your commentary is profoundly misguided. That som...Your commentary is profoundly misguided. That some thinkers with a Christian background admire Kingsley's work is hardly surprising in a culture that is still largely "christian." Your critique is so thin, so shallow, that it hardly deserves a response. Is Adyashanti a "closet Christian"? Pir Inayat Khan? Jacob Needleman? I suggest that you read Reality, but that would require concentration, elasticity of mind, courage, and deep reflection. I doubt that is your "cup of tea."Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14094654363764473038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-50434493266873096762010-02-17T17:33:00.239-05:002010-02-17T17:33:00.239-05:00It really is sad how many of the people who have a...It really is sad how many of the people who have actually read a little Plato often know less about him than those who have read none!Apuleius Platonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11761230673724504084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7817911217098974229.post-42954311873636776982010-02-12T03:25:15.080-05:002010-02-12T03:25:15.080-05:00Right --- it's incredible how Christianity has...Right --- it's incredible how Christianity has managed to throw such a cloak over what is obvious, obvious, obvious. Most think of "philosophy" as some brain puzzle esoterica having nothing to do with anything, when the fact is that Plato alone represents an incredible flowering of the spiritual wisdom of the pagan religions! It's incredible to me that anyone can pick up for 6 bucks the best of Plato's writing in a small anthology, and have in one's hands the flower of the religiosity of ancient times, and yet most people don't bother, and even people who do bother to read either do so in a cursory way, or flatten it out into pure secularity.SiegfriedGoodfellowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01696170388891436569noreply@blogger.com